LFW: Why Brooke Shields is next season’s biggest beauty muse

The boyish, effortless beauty that cemented Brooke Shields as an Eighties beauty icon was the inspiration at multiple shows at London Fashion Week.

When we think of coveted eyebrows, Cara Delevigne usually springs to mind – but Brooke Shields has often been cited as the original brow queen. When the actress and model starred in the desert-island classic The Blue Lagoon (controversially at the age of 14), her fresh, effortless aesthetic provided a more wearable alternative to the statement blush and backcombed hair of the Eighties.

With waist-length textured hair (that most likely kicked off the beach-babe trend) and impossibly full brows, Shields’ look continued to be timeless for years to come. Now that undone, natural beauty is quickly becoming a dominant trend, Shields has re-emerged as the beauty muse of London Fashion Week, with recreations of her bushy brows, bare skin and tousled hair providing the perfect neutral backdrop to showcase the collections.

At JW Anderson, Aaron De May wanted a “super beauty” look that was “exploding strangeness.” Specifically channelling Shields, he opted for “pure perfect velvet skin and a textured eyelid” using NARS, and honed in on the eyebrows as the focal point.

Models backstage at JW Anderson A/W18

“It’s all about the brows,” De May tells Stylist. “I wanted something that was absolutely Brooke Shields; a baby Brooke Shields brow that’s fluffy and handsome, and looks like it’s never been plucked.”

To achieve this, De May used a mixture of cool-toned eyeshadows and NARS Brow Perfector, £18.50, to match the models’ hair colour, and deliberately avoided applying product around the eyebrows to keep everything looking effortless and soft-focus.

“We wanted the brows to have character, rather than look overtly cosmetic,” he says. “By not outlining them with concealer, we avoided that hard edge that can often make them look like a caricature.”

Shields-inspired hair at Emilia Wickstead A/W18

At Emilia Wickstead, John Frieda Creative Director Luke Hersheson took inspiration from 1980s supermodel hair, citing Shields as his main muse.

“I wanted luscious hair with loads of volume focused at the front – that half-wet, lived-in texture that looks incredibly natural, but actually takes a lot of time to recreate,” he explains. “We saturated the hair with tonnes of John Frieda’s Luxurious Volume Root Booster Blow Dry Lotion, £6.99, drying it in between each layer to really bake in the texture.”

The most Shields-like element to the look? “That 80s sweep of hair that goes upwards from and around the face,” says Hersheson. “Give the hair a low side parting and gently tuck the ends behind the ears, then allow the lengths to fall naturally down the back or secure into a low ponytail.”